In college I took a Creative Writing class and had a number of nonfiction assignments. I was searching for things in my email inbox when I stumbled across this story I wrote in 2006. It gave me a lump-in-the-throat that was unpleasant, an aching feeling in my heart, but happiness in my soul.
ENG225
Nonfiction Assignment 3
30 January 2006
Tires hum over cobblestone when I drive past the elevated house on the corner with walls covered with green ivy. The terrace flows with uncontrolled hedges teaming over the hillside into what used to be clean-cut levels. The unkempt ivy covers the house where order used to prevail and the stone walls knew the light of day. The hum of the rubber on the stone reminds me of the days when it was just the pattering of my childhood feet on the stones next to the rhythmic pace of my Grandma’s.
Gone are the days when the house sang with my laughter and the warmth of my Grandma. The terrace and yard no longer hold the paths of intrigue that occupy a young child’s mind. The dark awnings over the bricked-in porch shade the bright days of sitting on fold-out chairs next to her, both of us sipping Pepsi. The front yard seems smaller, unwelcoming, and lacking the meticulous garden we worked on every day. The Mary statue no longer sits among budding marigolds, but instead she is gone and the grass covers the memories of a young girl and her Grandma planting the seeds of the flowers.
Inside the door every morning I found Grandma’s warm welcoming arms around my tiny figure. I reached my small arms as far as I could around her tall, well-dressed waist. Grandma would let me explore the vast reaches of her world as we waited to leave for early morning mass. The sun through the stained glass windows of her dining room danced across the floor and I sat under the table laying in the rainbows and moving to keep up. In the living room I would sit on the light pink carpet, afraid of the enormous couch I could disappear into, and watch the Pink Panther solve mysteries. I would march up the stairs and into the magical room with giant-sized pinecones in a woven brown basket, hundreds of envelopes waiting for a letter, and a closet door that guarded a secret world.
Inside the closet a four-foot high ledge with blankets on it led to several one-foot high ledges that led to the forbidden attic. My father tempted me to climb up the disguised staircase because he said Pink Panther was up there. My imagination ignited with possibilities for adventure with my favorite TV show character who I was unaware also was house insulation. The investigation into the interesting scent emanating from the hall closet led to the discovery of a box of mothballs, sitting on the floor under plastic-wrapped dresses hanging. The mothball smell permeated into all the rooms of the upstairs; the small white balls were hidden occasionally into the drawers and corners of every nook my curious feet and hands wandered to.
Adventures were interrupted by the daily mass Grandma and I traveled to. For mass we would walk beside the cobblestone street on the broken cement sidewalk and across the asphalt of the vacant church parking lot. The empty church stood in silence as Grandma prepared everything for the morning mass. I sat on the right side, four rows back from the front, in an empty pew waiting. My feet dangled off the edge of the cushioned bench and my clicking shoes broke the silence. After mass the pews would empty out again and Grandma and I would go to work. She fulfilled her religious duties behind the altar and behind the stained-glass wall in a room where small things were kept in locked drawers. I wandered the rows and realigned the prayer books to one side of the wooden fixture on the backside of every section of every pew. Beneath the books I reset all of the kneelers so the next forgiveness seeking person would not trip over the remnants of the last penitent person.
We returned down the cobblestone street to her house on the corner waiting until it was time to take me to afternoon Kindergarten. On days I felt daring I would open the door that guarded the house’s underworld and timidly walk down wooden step after creaking step into the dark, dusty room of shadows and mysterious objects. I explored, praying against ghosts and grabbing shadows, into the coal cellar filled with metal cans of countless varieties. The shelves of the room spilled out into the edges of the back wall and rows of corns, peas, gravies, soups, and unpronouncible metal goods towered in front of me. On the stairs, the ledge of the wall held the plastic container of the marigold tops we saved and waited to plant next to Mary.
Of all the times I sat in her kitchen, the cans remained trapped in the basement. Instead, Grandma and I would find ourselves sitting at her inlet of a kitchen table across from one another on our own cushioned benches eating a Klondike bar and drinking Pepsi from the can. We watched the clock, waiting until the last minute, the one minute that it took to get me to school, before we left. She would take me to the classroom door and we would say goodbye, my small arms hugging around her tiny waist.
It has been years since our feet last walked the short distance down the cobblestone. Grandma developed Alzheimer’s and was moved to a nursing home shortly after our mornings together. The house on the corner was sold. For a few years my father and I would drive the miles to spend time with her, our wheels traveling the course of asphalt through hills and turns. But eventually our visits, like Grandma, faded. As my tires hum over the cobblestone, I catch sight of the uncontrolled ivy over the stone walls that hold within them immeasurable mornings of childhood adventures with my Grandma.
Give God Your Yes 